On December 17, 1909, Leopold II died at Laeken, and the Belgian crown passed to Albert, the son of Leopold's brother, Philip, Count of Flanders.

Accordingly, the Government would ask Leopold's brother Prince Charles to serve as Regent but only after the Liberation of Belgium in September 1944.

He was long suspected of being the illegitimate son of either Empress Carlota of Mexico ( by General Alfred Van der Smissen ); or of her brother Leopold II, King of the Belgians, and Leopold's Polish mistress.

The marriage never materialised ; Maria Beatrice instead married Leopold's brother, Archduke Ferdinand.

Among his lovers was Countess Cowper, wife of the 3rd Earl Cowper, who in compensation for being cuckolded was given honours by Leopold's brother, Joseph II.

During this period, the Belgian royal family lived in exile in Prégny, Switzerland ; King Leopold's younger brother, Prince Charles of Belgium, was made Regent of the country.

If this is so, then the claim of the Dukedom of Albany passed upon Johann Leopold's death in 1972 to his youngest brother Friedrich Josias, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and became extinct upon the latter's death in 1998.

Later, in 1406, his elder brother Leopold IV ceded Tyrol to his sole rule when their eldest brother William died ; and Frederick became sole ruler in Further Austria only upon Leopold's death in 1411.

The writings of Henry of Melk and Ava of Göttweig, which are the first literary texts from Austria, date back to Leopold's time.

As he did not manage to overcome Leopold's obstinacy, Frederick returned to Munich as a prisoner, even though the Pope had released him from his oath.

However, after Leopold's death in 1326, Frederick withdrew from the regency of the Empire and returned to rule only Austria.

Leopold's regime began undertaking various development projects, such as a railway that ran from the coast to Leopoldville ( now Kinshasa ) which took years to complete.

Missionary John Harris of Baringa, for example, was so shocked by what he had come across that he wrote to Leopold's chief agent in the Congo saying: " I have just returned from a journey inland to the village of Insongo Mboyo.

Leopold's rule was subject to severe criticism, especially from British sources.

Doyle contrasted Leopold's rule to the British rule of Nigeria, arguing decency required that those who ruled primitive peoples to be concerned first with their uplift, not how much could be extracted from them.

It should be noted that, as Hochschild describes in King Leopold's Ghost, many of Leopold's policies were adopted from Dutch practices in the East Indies, and similar methods were employed to some degree by Germany, France and Portugal where natural rubber occurred in their colonies.

A family retreat from the city of Madison, Leopold's attempts to restore health to this abandoned farm, with the help of family and friends, became inspiration for his masterpiece " A Sand County Almanac.

As competition from other areas of rubber cultivation mounted, Leopold's private rule was left increasingly vulnerable to international scrutiny, especially from Britain.

He left his job and became a full-time investigative journalist and then a publisher with help from merchants who wanted to break Leopold's monopoly or, in the case of chocolate millionaire William Cadbury, philanthropists.

The couple had a brief, but happy marriage, ending in the hemophiliac Leopold's death from a fall in Cannes, France, in March 1884.

When in 1859 France and Piedmont made war on Austria, Leopold's government failed to prevent numbers of young Tuscan volunteers from joining the Franco-Piedmontese forces.

Confederate troops of Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden had marched back from Zürich once it became clear that this was not Leopold's target.

It was Leopold's descendant Frederick V of Austria, elected King of the Romans in 1440 and sole ruler over all Austrian lands from 1457, who reaped the fruit of Rudolf's efforts and laid the foundations of the Habsburg Monarchy.

As he did not manage to overcome Leopold's obstinacy, Frederick returned to Munich as a prisoner, even though the Pope had released him from his oath.

After Leopold's death in 1326, Frederick actually withdrew from the regency of Germany and returned to rule only in Austria and Styria.

Among the points of interest within it are the old chapel of 1318, with Leopold's tomb and the Verdun Altar, dating from the 12th century, the treasury and relic-chamber, the library with 30, 000 volumes and numerous manuscripts, the picture gallery, the collection of coins, the theological hall, and the winecellar, containing an immense tun like that at Heidelberg.

For the look of things, he held one more meeting the following year, but from that time on, the Association Internationale Africaine was simply a front for Leopold's ambition.

For 26 years, Callicott lived and taught in the northern reaches of Wisconsin's sand counties, located on the Wisconsin River, just ninety miles from Aldo Leopold's storied shack and John Muir's first homestead on Fountain Lake, the region that stirred the souls of two very influential environmental thinkers.

A number of valuable works of the Italian masters, now in the Vienna Museum, came from Leopold's gallery after having belonged to Charles I and the duke of Buckingham.

On April 16, 2010, in Game 2 of a playoff series between the Penguins and the Ottawa Senators, Leopold's series was ended by a hit from Senators ' defenceman Andy Sutton.

Sophie's undoubted royal blood would help to offset the stigma of Leopold's morganatic birth.

Inspired by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Aldo Leopold's land ethic, and Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang, a group of activists composed of environmental activist Dave Foreman, ex-Yippie ( Youth International Party ) Mike Roselle, Wyoming Wilderness Society representatives Bart Koehler and Howie Wolke and Bureau of Land Management employee Ron Kezar pledged, " No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!

What evidence is available would seem to indicate that Brooks, unlike his older brother Henry, had most of the methodological vices usually found in the amateur.

Early in January, 1844 he had a conference with Henry and William in New Orleans, and upon learning of Gorham's intention, Henry remonstrated calmly but firmly with his brother.

Henry hid his annoyance, although both he and William were furious with their Yankee brother.

His famous criticism of brother Henry's `` third style '' is surely as subtly, even elegantly, worded an analysis of the latter's intricate air castles as Henry himself could ever have produced.

* Alfonso of Castile, Prince of Asturias, figurehead of rebelling magnates against his brother King Henry IV of Castile.

He won the battle of Taillebourg in the Saintonge War with his brother Louis IX, against a revolt allied with king Henry III of England.

Catherine subsequently married Arthur's younger brother, the recently-succeeded Henry VIII, in 1509.

Charles was not as valued as his physically stronger, elder brother, Henry, Prince of Wales, whom Charles personally adored and attempted to emulate.

When, after the death of Emperor Otto I in 973, a struggle for the supremacy in Germany began, both Dobrawa's husband and brother Boleslav II the Pious, Duke of Bohemia, supported the same candidate for the German throne, Duke Henry II of Bavaria.

He had an elder brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and a younger sister, Rosalie Poe.

Before entering West Point, Poe moved back to Baltimore for a time, to stay with his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, her daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm ( Poe's first cousin ), his brother Henry, and his invalid grandmother Elizabeth Cairnes Poe.

His elder brother Henry, who had been in ill health in part due to problems with alcoholism, died on August 1, 1831.

Poe is believed to have lived in the home at the age of 23 when he first lived with Maria Clemm and Virginia ( as well as his grandmother and possibly his brother William Henry Leonard Poe ).

Two lords – Theobald V, Count of Blois, son of the Count of Champagne, and Geoffrey, Count of Nantes ( brother of Henry II, Duke of Normandy ) – tried to kidnap Eleanor to marry her and claim her lands on Eleanor's way to Poitiers.

By 1569, relations with the Habsburgs had deteriorated, and Elizabeth considered marriage to two French Valois princes in turn, first Henry, Duke of Anjou, and later, from 1572 to 1581, his brother Francis, Duke of Anjou, formerly Duke of Alençon.

In December 1584, an alliance between Philip II and the French Catholic League at Joinville undermined the ability of Anjou's brother, Henry III of France, to counter Spanish domination of the Netherlands.

While at Reims, Callistus tried to effect a settlement with Henry I of England and his brother Robert.

Pittypat's financial affairs are managed by her brother, Henry, whom she doesn't especially care for.

In 1212 during the reign of his brother John Lackland the Kingdom instead became a tribute-paying vassal of the Holy See until the 16th century when Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church.

Henry I, the fourth son of William I the Conqueror, succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100.

Henry was also known as " Henry Beauclerc " ( because of his education — as his older brother William was the heir apparent and thus given the practical training to be king, Henry received the alternate, formal education ), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman societies.

Because the election of a three-year-old boy to be German king appeared likely to make orderly rule difficult, the boy's uncle, Duke Philip of Swabia, brother of late Henry VI, was designated to serve in his place.